International Relations as a Social System: From Sociocybernetics to the Sociology of IR

Against current developments in the sociology of IR, from new systemic theorizations of world society to Bourdieusian approaches to the practices of IR scholars, this article claims that relevant problems remain regarding how IR theorizes its social location and reconciles the social character of the world it observes with the social character of its observations. To reformulate these problems, the article draws from an underused paradigm of...